If you were impressed by Gang Hyejeong in "Old Boy" and "Welcome to Dongmakgol," the movie "Rules of Dating" (Korean title Yeonaeui Mokjeok) will give you a chance to see another side of Gang. Compared with her other movies, she talks a bit more, but maintains the somewhat same trademark blank expression throughout. In this movie, she is slightly reminiscent of Lee Eunju in "Bungee Jumping of Their Own," though Gang is still very clumsy at acting. An advantage of watching this movie is that the viewer witnesses how bold and frank young people are these days in expressing what they want. A high school English teacher, Eurim (Bak Haeil), casually suggests "sleeping together" to his trainee teacher as if he were simply proposing to have lunch. She retorts back, "If you want to sleep with me, you have to pay 500,000 won." Though the screenplay writer stated in an interview that the whole scheme is designed to disclose the ugly aspect of men who confuse love and sex, Eurim is not as sleazy as he is supposed to be thanks to some redeeming aspect of his character. Just as the original Korean title of the movie translates to "Objective of Dating," the movie focuses on why they date each other. What do they want from each other? For marriage, for finding pure love, or just for satisfying sexual desire? The answer, to me, is that each takes advantage of the other and that there is nothing wrong in admitting the reality of their egocentric desires. Released in June, the film became a box office hit partially thanks to the rising popularity of Bak. By Hank Kim.
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